Stars of yesterday foster tradition

Shelden Williams is banging in the paint with Carlos Boozer. Nick Horvath is matching up one-on-one with Christian Laettner. Bobby Hurley advises Jay Williams, who shouts instructions to Chris Duhon, while Grant Hill enlightens Luol Deng.

 

   This is not a description of the Hall-of-Fame mode of a college basketball video game, but the reality of Cameron Indoor Stadium during the basketball team's off-season. While players at other top-notch basketball programs seem to be in college one moment and in the pros the next, Blue Devil head coach Mike Krzyzewski has created a basketball family where former players interact with current players on a consistent basis.

 

   "I still root so hard for Duke," former Duke All-American and current Cleveland Cavalier Carlos Boozer said in an interview with The Chronicle. "It killed me when we lost to Kansas in the tournament last year. We [former players] feel like we're still part of it."

 

   While Krzyzewski has been promoting a brotherhood between all former and current players throughout his 24 years at Duke, the nexus of past greats with current stars has been especially apparent this year largely due to Deng. The 6-foot-8 freshman has idolized Hill since his early adolescent years, attempting to imitate his play.

 

   "When Grant was a freshman we won the national championship, but he had three or four games where he didn't score," Krzyzewski said after the Blue Devils' win over Clemson earlier this month. "No one would ever think that. When Luoey was playing okay, but not really well like he is now, Grant just reminded him that there's a process that you go through."

 

   Deng responded to Hill's advice by winning back-to-back ACC freshman of the week honors.

 

   Hill's attachment to Deng is to be expected, as former Duke players normally develop relationships with like-minded individuals.

"I like Laettner a lot," Minnesota native Nick Horvath said. "He was a tall white guy just like me, and we got along. He lived in Minnesota. I just remember in the preseason a lot he would take me under his wing. You know coming in you had this stigma that Laettner is an intimidating guy. But you know he's a great guy. I actually like Laettner a lot."

 

   A similar interconnection occurs between the 1999 National Player of the Year Elton Brand, 2002 All-American Carlos Boozer and potential All-American Shelden Williams. All three players stand between 6-foot-8 and 6-foot-9, and find most of their success by pounding their opponents with muscular moves in the post.

 

   "When I was at Duke [former players] helped me, especially Brand," Boozer said. "It's one of those things that trickle down, like a tradition."

 

   Williams felt similarly about his relationship with Boozer.

"I'm friends with Carlos Boozer when he comes back," he said. "We play the same position. I ask him about the things he did."

 

   While players maintain that accords would continue without his guidance, Krzyzewski has been instrumental in promoting a family atmosphere and encouraging contacts with the team. The West Point graduate invites former players to help coach in Krzyzewski's yearly K Academy Fantasy Camp, a charity event where paying adults are counseled by members of all ranks of the Blue Devil family.

 

   "There's not really an obligation to help the current team, I just want to," Boozer said. "A lot of guys come back for coach's camp. Coach kind of sets up [interaction] with the camp."

Players of the past also help the men's basketball team deal with something that is unique to the Duke program: unconditional hatred from opposing ACC schools.

 

   "I talked one time with Hurley about the crowd," sophomore guard J.J. Redick said. "On his senior video there's this clip of him yelling at someone profusely going back to the huddle. I was like, 'Who were you yelling at?' He was just like, 'The fans for Wake were talking trash, and we went on a 20-0 run so I was just giving it to them.'"

 

   Not every Blue Devil encounter is planned, either. Players have coincidentally run into each other, where they say they each share a special bond no matter which era the player is from. Boozer has a story about running into Mark Alarie; Lee Melchionni bumped into Hurley in Manhattan; and Shavlik Randolph randomly caught up with Laettner in Florida.

 

   "This summer I went to visit some family in South Florida," Randolph said. "On my way back we stopped at a Panera's Bread in Jacksonville, Fla. And we walk in I see this tall guy. And I'm thinking, 'This guy might be taller than me.' It was Laettner! It was weird."

 

   Players also feel a desire to help current team members because of the exceptional relationships they still have with coaches. A large part of this occurrence is due to the fact that all of the current assistant coaches are also former players.

 

   "It's great that our players can have such good reputations that when they come back the guys all look up to them," associate head coach and former Duke All-American Johnny Dawkins said.

 

   Unfortunately, former Duke players have had to live through tragedy with one another. When Jay Williams experienced potential career-ending injuries from a motorcycle accident, Hurley, who also was involved in a career-changing automobile accident early in his career, tried to help No. 22 as best he could.

 

   "I wanted to let him know about some of the things I went through," Hurley told The Washington Times. "The things I could have done better as far as recovering. ... I know I was really gung-ho about proving I could get back on the court as quickly as possible.

 

   "There's nothing wrong with taking the time you need to get yourself together in a lot of different ways. No one really knows what it's like to go through something as traumatic as that, as life-changing, unless they go through it."

 

   In the end, the Blue Devil experience, both during and after college, remains a largely positive one. While many former Duke basketball players go on to do great things on and off the basketball court, the main reason many come back to advise the team is because this is where the former amateurs enjoyed the game the most.

 

   "I think the best thing that Duke has is sort of a basketball family," Horvath said. "A lot of people that graduate...a lot of these guys like Grant Hill and Carlos Boozer, Elton--people that go on and play great and make zillions of dollars in the NBA--they come back to Duke, and they still say this is where basketball is at its highest. Guys that are playing at the highest and making the big bucks, this is where they enjoyed it the most. So I think that's really a lot of credit to Coach, and the program here. Because of that they like to come back."